By the Lord’s great mercy, I was born in to a Christian family in Romania and was saved dynamically at a young age. The Lord appeared to me and saved me from my sins. His beauty attracted me to love Him and to follow Him. Although I began to experience the Lord, I did not have much truth in my heart.
It was in the year 1994 that the Lord granted me a real seeking and hunger for His Word. At that time, I began to read the Romanian Bible with the references for each verse (there are no footnotes in the Romanian Bible). Also, I began to read some spiritual books, seeking something that would satisfy my hunger and thirst. Then, by the Lord’s mercy, I began to contact Him in the Word in my personal reading of the Bible. When I came to Paul’s epistles, I began to touch the love and care of Paul for the church, the believers. At this juncture, a desperate prayer full of feeling rose up within me—I prayed something like this: “Lord You had the apostle Paul to help the believers in those days—what about today—who do You have?” I really sensed that we believers needed a lot of help in our walk with the Lord.
Not long after I prayed this way, I began to receive very special gospel tracts on the college campus (Cal State Long Beach) I was attending at that time. As I was reading the tracts, which were written with the purpose for others to receive the Lord, I was astounded at how clear the gospel was proclaimed—and at the same time I received much life from them. Oh this was so good for my spirit. Although I enjoyed the tracts to the uttermost I didn’t intend to find out who these people were that were passing them out. All I knew was that I fully agreed with them and wholly stood with them in my spirit.
One day as I was walking to my car to go home, two precious believers in the Lord approached me and invited me to attend the weekly seminar on campus. We also set up an appointment to meet regularly to have fellowship, sing, and pray. My spirit leaped at such an invitation. I spontaneously agreed, and felt like I knew them for a long time. The fact that someone would take time to fellowship with me meant everything in the world to me. No one had done this to me in my whole Christian life. In my inner being I was desperate for this. I was starved and even to the point of suffocating spiritually at that time. Oh how I thank the Lord for this!
In May, 1994 I was invited to a gospel meeting of the church in Anaheim. Before this gospel meeting I had prayed another prayer that I had never prayed in my Christian life “Lord Jesus tell me where You want me to meet.” That night at the gospel meeting I received the answer. I realized that the Lord has designated a place for His chosen to meet as His testimony as shown in Deuteronomy 12.
In the summer of 1994 the Lord revealed to me the purpose of my Christian life, the purpose of my human life, His eternal purpose, His heart’s desire. I began to learn of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I began to see that the Lord has used these two dear brothers to open up the whole Bible. Now I see who the Lord has used in today’s time to help His believers know what is on His heart. What I enjoy the most about Watchman Nee and Witness Lee’s ministries is that they fully gave themselves for the New Testament ministry. Their ministry has stirred up my love for the Lord Jesus as the Bridegroom (2 Corinthians 11:2-3), and has strengthened me to follow Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings for the sake of His Body (2 Corinthians 11:23-33; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24). Praise the Lord!
A.V.